"It's so obvious, but I never would have thought that in a million years." That's what Usable Insight is. It's very close to what you are already doing and you can use it immediately to make your life better and share it with others to help them do the same.

Monday, April 28, 2008

Is Your Teen Depressed or Anxious?

by Mark Goulston, April 5, 2008

Mother: Do you think he'll put his fist through the wall?

Father: Let's hope it's not his head!

And so begins another evening of pillow talk between the parents of an angry, sullen teenager.

If your child is angry, negative, brooding and avoids people and you're thinking depression, think again.

More and more research shows that in a majority of cases where adults or adolescents have a mixture of anxiety and depression, the anxiety comes first and in most cases causes the depression. That anxiety causes such people to withdraw socially, self-medicate with alcohol or pot, and eventually to have it cross over to poor school or work performance. It's these disastrous effects that intolerable anxiety has on their lives that causes them to feel depressed, it's not the depression itself.

This is important to keep in mind, because although many anti-depressant medications (such as Lexapro™, Paxil™, Zoloft™, Effexor™) are also effective on anxiety, anxiety is a different entity than depression and requires a different approach.

If you treat the depression and miss out on the underlying anxiety that's causing it, people with it will not do as well.

Unfortunately one of the worst combinations that adolescents can have is what I refer to as the "Triple A - lethal cocktail of adolescence" – Anxiety, Alcohol and Arrogance. The anxiety and alcohol use are quite treatable, but it is that "leave me alone," refuse to accept help arrogance that keeps adolescents from getting the help they need and getting better.

Please feel free to share this with your adolescent if you think it will help.

About Me

I didn't serve in Vietnam. My high school classmates, Arthur Stroyman and Paul Dunne did. They've spent the past 40 years on the Vietnam War Memorial Wall. My children didn't serve in Afghanistan or Iraq. My friend Jane Bright's son, Evan Ashcraft did. He died and one of the only things that kept Jane going was to establish the Evan Ashchraft Foundation.
Honoring the all who gave some and the some who gave all so the rest of us could be free is just the beginning. We need to repay them. And our repayment shall be in preparing and helping them to succeed as much at Mission Home as their Mission to fight tyranny and terrorism.